Advice—March 2004

Dear Sparkle,
What can I do about my human—she’s really annoying! She’s always picking me up and kissing me and I hate it! She never even asks for permission—there I am, wandering around the house, minding my own business when out of nowhere she swoops down and grabs me and starts kissing me on the head. Even worse is when I’m sleeping—I’m dreaming of catching a big, fat rat and the next thing I know, she’s sneaking up on me and pushing her lips into my fur. Now, don’t get me wrong. She’s really okay for a human. She serves excellent food (that chunky Nutro stuff you’re always talking about), plus I get treats whenever I ask for them (well, usually). But what’s with this kissing business and how do I make it stop?
Signed,
Exasperated

Dear Exasperated,
Oh, the kissing thing—that really is one irritating human habit, isn’t it? I’m not quite sure how the human kissing thing originated, but I have some ideas. You know how we cats like rubbing our faces against things so that we mark them with our scent? I bet that kissing has the same function for humans—they probably have some sort of glands in their lips and when they kiss you, they’re marking you as their possession. Isn’t that funny? As if we belong to them! I know that this is an absolutely ludicrous assumption, but that is just the way humans see things. You know what’s really weird, though? Some cats actually like to be kissed. If you ask me, I think there’s something strange about cats who enjoy having human lips forced on them. Yeech. But let’s look at your dilemma. A kiss now and again is an acceptable quirk, one of those annoyances that we cats must endure as a tradeoff for the creature comforts we get from living with these curious beings. But it seems to me like your human is rather obsessive about the kissing thing, so you will have to train her to curtail her bad habit.

As you have probably already discovered, scowling to show your displeasure has little effect on humans (for some reason they seem to think it’s “cute”), so you need to be a little more obvious. If she’s holding you while forcing herself on you, struggle and whine. Because cats are so flexible, it is generally pretty easy to slip out of the most tenacious human grasp. Then go somewhere where she can’t get at you – under the bed or behind the couch are always good choices. Same thing if she wakes you up from a blissful slumber—leave and take your nap somewhere else, somewhere she won’t fit. If she is really persistent about disturbing your sleep and you don’t want to be stuck crawling under the bed all the time, then pick a high place. The top of the refrigerator is almost always a good choice—most female humans aren’t tall enough to kiss you if you’re up there. She can only reach up and pet you, which of course is what she should be doing anyway instead of kissing. Or if you’re handy, open up a cupboard and nap there. Napping in the cupboard is always fun because the first few times you do it, the humans can’t find you and they start freaking out. It is really amusing to listen to them panic while you’re all cozy and hidden.

If you’ve tried everything and your human continues to persist in her bad kissing habits, try this tip I learned from Binga: bite her on the nose. Not too hard, just hard enough so she says, “Ouch!” and lets go of you, but not hard enough to make her scream. You don’t really want to hurt her, after all. Pretend like biting her nose is a display of affection. If she thinks you’re doing it because you like her, she can’t get too mad. But after you’ve bitten her nose a few times, she will be a lot more cautious about putting her lips near your head, believe me.

Now if we could only train our humans to headbutt… but I’m sure that’s beyond their grasp.